Visa Going Public
By Justin McHenry
Visa announced today that it intends to restructure its operations to create a new company, Visa Inc., which will then have an initial public offering (IPO) to become a public company. Visa Inc. will be created through a series of mergers involving Visa USA, Visa Canada and Visa International, which includes the operating regions of Asia Pacific; Latin America and the Caribbean; and Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa. (Visa Europe will retain its current, member bank-owned association structure.) Visa said a majority of the shares in the reorganized company will be sold to the public.
If the proposed restructuring is approved, a board of directors and a new CEO will need to be named. Visa says a search for the people to fill these positions is already underway.
Visa’s biggest competitor, MasterCard, had a very successful public offering in May of this year, raising $2.4 billion. The new Visa Inc. may be twice the size of MasterCard, leaving the door open to an IPO that could rank among the very largest in history.